OPM: Gran Turismo 5 Head-Tracking Is “Underwhelming”

At this point in time, Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo 5 is in a pretty whacked up position. Firstly, because it’s gearing up to be the best racing game ever, and all of its hype is doing little to quiet fans. Secondly, because we’re still wandering, even though a release date has been given, whether this game will ever see the light of day.

However, according to Official PlayStation Magazine’s large 5 page preview of the game, there is one area in which Gran Turismo 5 will have to ‘smooth out before release’ – and that area is head-tracking, of all the things in the world to complain about.

The magazine recently got to play with Yamauchi-san’s pride and joy racing masterpiece and, unsurprisingly, said that it’s mind-blowing. According to the lengthy preview, the title ‘accurately models mechanic and cosmetic damage to an absurd degree’ and is ‘looking beautiful’.

But the complaint from OPM about head-tracking went as follows: “Gran Turismo 3D debuted impeccably but the game’s face tracking fared less well,” it reports. “Face-tracking using the PS Eye works on the 200 cars with cockpits and lets you look around by tilting your face away fro the screen, but the early demo we played left us underwhelmed.

“Head-tracking has been working well on PC for years using IR camera and reference makers but PS EYe is a simpler camera and Gran Turismo applies a digital interpretation to an analogue movement.

“A slight glance to the left or right is translated by the game after a considerable delay as a full 90-degree crane of your neck. Hopefully Polyphony can smooth things out before release.”

I hope GT5 doesn’t get delayed now again in order to perfect head-tracking. If all goes well, we’ll see GT5 release in November of 2010.